Overview
- In 1981 in Paris, Issei Sagawa shot Dutch student Renée Hartevelt and confessed he killed her to eat her flesh.
- He raped her corpse and consumed parts of her body over two days, eating some pieces raw and cooking others.
- Sagawa tried to dump remains in two suitcases at the Bois de Boulogne, which police traced to him after joggers reported blood and a taxi driver identified him.
- French psychiatrists deemed him unfit for trial, leading to roughly four years in a secure hospital, and leaked 1985 crime-scene photos prompted authorities to seize a magazine’s print run.
- After repatriation to Japan, doctors found a personality disorder but not legal insanity, French authorities withheld cooperation, he was released in 1986, later profited from media attention, and he died in 2022.